Word: rai
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...place you might still find should you have the time, funds and gumption to cross the muddy sweep of the Mekong into Burma or Laos. But if, like most tourists, you opt to view this famous confluence of three nations from Thailand's northernmost province of Chiang Rai, you might wish to check some of your preconceptions at the door. The unfettered, grasping, quick-buck kind of development that has turned so many of the kingdom's places of beauty into seething eyesores is fast taking hold along this stretch of the mighty river's banks...
...another decade or so is all that separates this once lovely spot from becoming Pattaya-on-the-Mekong. "This was still mostly farmland 10 years ago," says Junfong Suphan, 48, a farmer who now sells counterfeit Nike clothing shipped down from China. Her stall in the town of Chiang Rai is one of dozens clustered near a towering sign that welcomes visitors to the Golden Triangle. Across the main road, the strip of guesthouses, bars, restaurants, souvenir shops and accompanying lurid signage expands daily. "I used to grow tomatoes and tobacco, but I can make a lot more money selling...
...very thing that is killing Chiang Rai can also be used to save indigenous traditions. While most tour guides based in town treat hill-tribe visits like trips to the zoo, the Akha village of Ban Lorcha, about an hour's drive away from Chiang Rai, is providing an interactive educational experience for visitors by becoming a living museum. "This project has been very valuable for our community," says Ban Lorcha Community Based Tourism Development Project director Songnam Ritwanna. "In the past, tourists just walked through the village, but no one could explain to them the culture, so they didn...
...nostalgic visitors pining for the taste of opium, once the unofficial mainstay of hill-tribe trekking tours, will be disappointed by Ban Lorcha. Instead they are better off taking a turn through Chiang Rai shops for "authentic" hill-tribe opium pipes?made in China. It's the modern way to get the tourist hooked...
Santikhiri, nestled in the upper slopes of Doi Mae Salong in the northernmost province of Chiang Rai, is the kind of place that time forgot. This quaint hamlet, wreathed in a pink mist of cherry blossoms, is home to the so-called "lost army" of the Kuomintang's 93rd Division, which in 1961 stumbled, exhausted, into this mountain paradise. Although by now their numbers have dwindled, you can still see the old warriors padding about in quilted jackets, sipping tea in the shadows of pagodas and reliving old campaigns...